


The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

by AppleSharon



Series: Our Kind of Traitor (Reeve Tuesti) [6]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romantic Tension, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSharon/pseuds/AppleSharon
Summary: “You already rescued me once,” Vincent said. It came out more grateful than he meant the statement to sound.“Ah well,” Reeve said. He continued to pull at his cuffs, scraping his nails across the buttons. Vincent could hear a slight lilt of Reeve’s natural accent. Reeve looked back up at the well-lit windows of the new Seventh Heaven and sighed.“They know you at least. They don’t know me. They know Cait Sith.”After conversing several times throughout their journey, Vincent Valentine and Reeve Tuesti meet face-to-face in a world rebuilding.
Relationships: Reeve Tuesti/Vincent Valentine
Series: Our Kind of Traitor (Reeve Tuesti) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730203
Comments: 31
Kudos: 131





	1. Seventh Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> This will eventually be a mature work, but these first few chapters will not be (I'll warn in the beginning notes on those chapters in case people want to skip them.) 
> 
> This a coda to [A Most Wanted Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135382/chapters/58111417) which is a collection of Reeve and Vincent's conversations via Cait Sith.
> 
> All of the works in this series are named after John le Carré spy novels and this is no exception, hehe. ^ ^

Vincent considered not going at all. 

_It's just that you're always so cold. I thought you didn't care what was happening.”_

Cloud had said this to him once, somewhat to Vincent’s surprise. He had then wondered, given how little he spoke to Cloud or the group as a whole, why it had seemed like a surprise at all. It wasn’t as if Cloud knew him outside of a vague impression — the odd brooding guy whose coffin they had kicked the lid off of in a Nibelheim basement and then loudly insisted he come along.

He could now admit that it wasn’t just the promise of meeting Sephiroth, Lucrecia’s son, dangled in front of him like a fishing lure, but that it had simply been time to leave — time to stop his self-imposed isolation and start atoning for his sins with his own two hands. 

Or one hand and a gold gauntlet that, at this point, was an extension of himself. And a gun, another extension — a holdover from his past human self as a Turk. 

Under Veld’s watch, the Turks had been a unit. Despite Veld’s insistence that they never become like him, they were very much moulded in his image. 

As for Vincent's current group, he only had actual conversations with one person in their party and those in and of themselves were oddities. Vincent now had a name to match the strangely-soothing voice that came from Cait Sith when no one else was listening — Reeve Tuesti — but no face outside of the vacant stare of his robot cat toy. 

Vincent could have researched Reeve, especially now that they were certainly more than acquaintances, but he had an odd feeling that whatever connection they had created would somehow disintegrate if he did. 

Open communication had never been one of Vincent’s strengths. 

Reeve would open up to him eventually — he realized in this moment that he was remarkably confident of this fact given their past conversations — and he found himself wanting to wait for Reeve to choose the time and place. 

Admittedly, it was also far easier for Vincent to talk with someone he couldn’t see. Although as their conversations had grown deeper in subject matter and intensity, the ridiculousness of opening up to a robotic cat was not lost on him. He sometimes felt like he had been pulled out of time — had Reeve even been born when he was initially alive and human instead of a monster? — and it helped that Reeve was not only an adult but also someone he couldn’t physically see as a human standing in front of him. 

Vincent huffed, a dry laugh briefly escaping as he exhaled. He was a bit fucked, really. 

There was Cloud — someone with whom he identified more than he cared to admit — and Tifa, who was too emotionally-intelligent for her own good and naturally saw beneath the layers of armour and bullshit, and when the two of them both asked for Vincent to show up to something, he felt like he couldn’t decline. 

Cloud’s invite had been an awkward “Tifa’s having a thing, for her bar. She’d like it if you’d come” during one of Vincent’s stints with the rapidly-growing Strife Delivery Service. 

Tifa had extended the invitation over the counter of said bar as Vincent had come in for some errand on Cloud’s behalf with a knowing smile. She knew he would come because she knew he actually cared. 

So Vincent considered not going at all, but in the end he kept seeing Tifa’s smile in his head and while he was annoyed and angry at being figured out, so to speak, he also didn’t particularly want to let the group down by not showing up. 

Vincent reconsidered his choice again as he stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to the new Seventh Heaven bar. 

Warm light from the inside spilled out through the windows onto the small porch. Barrett was yelling over the rest of the party, and Vincent could hear Yuffie cackling to herself. Someone was pounding on the jukebox buttons, forcing it to change songs rapidly.

He should have brought something — maybe a bottle of wine that he could shove into Tifa’s hands before making a convenient excuse to leave without ever having to go inside — if only to make the fact that he was standing outside awkwardly by himself. 

Cloud had also once described him as a vampire, which Yuffie had then figuratively ran with, annoying him at every turn while cackling loudly. 

_”Ooooh, I forgot you’re a big scary vampire ahahaha.”_

And then she would wiggle her fingers at him mimicking some character from some show that he didn’t know, cackling as she faked tossing a cape to the side. 

He hadn’t bothered to correct her, mainly because she was the last person he wanted to talk about his problems with. Yuffie, for all of her issues, had been forced to grow up fast and take on the mantle of ancestral pride, despite her young age. 

One of these days, he would shock her by telling her that she wore it well, even for all of her thievery. 

The term vampire suggested a certain amount of grace and elegance. Currently he just felt rumpled and old, looming oddly over the recently-constructed stoop still wondering how many of his thoughts were his own or how many of them belonged to the monsters he cohabitated with against his will.

He tried to remember whether he’d been this introspective as a Turk. If his voluntary thirty-year sleep had done anything at all, it had trained him to dwell on things too much, contrary to the initial purpose of his sleep which had been to not think about anything at all. 

Breathing deeply, he smelled the acrid scent of wood varnish and underneath it, freshly-cut wood. He took a step forward.

“Vincent?”

When he was younger, he would have jumped at the perceived intrusion — it wasn’t really an intrusion when he was the one standing on the stoop, blocking the doorway — but now his fingers merely twitched, imperceptible to the would-be intruder because he knew that voice. 

He knew that voice more intimately than he cared to admit. 

“Reeve.”

Vincent hoped his voice didn’t sound as gruff or as breathy as it had in his own head. He could hear the monsters mocking him now, or perhaps those were his own thoughts as well. 

Reeve Tuesti was a shorter, bearded man with dark hair and small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. It looked like he hadn’t cut his hair in months and it curled up where it met his shoulders. He wore a suit that was slightly too large for him and a small nervous smile, all while carrying a bottle of wine with another one tucked under his arm.

“Presents for Tifa,” Reeve said, following Vincent’s eyes. 

At least Vincent could take some solace in the fact that Reeve looked just as awkward as he felt, fiddling with the cuffs of his suit jacket and picking at his shirtsleeves underneath while juggling two bottles of wine. 

When Vincent had been a Turk, Veld had made certain that all of their suits were impeccably tailored. He briefly wondered if Reeve hadn’t had the time or, more likely, if Reeve simply didn’t care all that much, at least not nearly as much as his former executive peers. 

Reeve continued to look at him somewhat expectantly with a small smile on his face. Vincent didn’t know what to say. 

“Are you going in?” Reeve finally asked after they had stared at each other a bit more. 

Vincent could also take solace in the fact that Reeve sounded just as awkward as he felt as well. 

“I was thinking about it.” 

Reeve nodded as if he understood Vincent’s reluctance. He probably did understand somewhat. 

“You can go in first if you want,” Vincent said, stepping aside to let Reeve through. Reeve took a step closer, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Vincent, before shaking his head. 

“You looked like you needed a rescue,” he said, eyes shining with mirth.

Vincent laughed again, this time loudly and freely. Reeve looked a bit taken aback by the outburst but grinned at Vincent with a proud expression on his face that Vincent didn’t understand. 

_“I am trapped on the sixty-third floor of a very tall tower. One that’s rather of my own design. Maybe I could use a rescue myself.”_

Reeve had said this to him during their first conversation, but Reeve had also rescued himself, unlike Vincent. 

“You already rescued me once,” Vincent said. It came out more grateful than he meant the statement to sound.

“Ah well,” Reeve said. He continued to pull at his cuffs, scraping his nails across the buttons. Vincent could hear a slight lilt of Reeve’s natural accent. Reeve looked back up at the well-lit windows of the new Seventh Heaven and sighed. 

“They know you at least. They don’t know me. They know Cait Sith.”

“They don’t know me either,” Vincent said. It was too quick of a response and Reeve looked up into his eyes with confusion, before smiling broadly again. 

“No, I suppose they don’t.”


	2. The Cosmo Candle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I can’t get drunk.” Vincent had tried. The monsters made it impossible._
> 
> _Tifa looked like she was holding back laughter, but continued to smile at him as she stepped back and poured an identical drink._
> 
> _“Still, share this with him. He wants you to.”_

They had both crossed the threshold of the new Seventh Heaven eventually, Reeve staring at Vincent before bowing his head and walking slowly inside. Reeve was still stiffly juggling the wine bottles as he pushed the door open with his shoulder, and it wasn’t until he stared after Reeve for another few moments that Vincent realized he should have offered to take one. 

It would have given him something to hand to Tifa to stave off how awkward he felt. 

The door closed loudly behind Vincent as he walked in. His ears were immediately assaulted by noise and music that had bled out onto the porch along with warm patches of light cast through the windows onto the freshly-painted floorboards.

Reeve had already dropped off his presents with a wide grin and hug for Tifa before kneeling down to talk to Marlene who was playing in a corner of the room with Cait Sith. Vincent watched him from across the room as he slowly walked to the bar.

He wondered if that was the first time Reeve and Tifa had met in person. They already seemed so close, at least when observed from afar. 

Vincent shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. 

_“They don’t know me either.”_

He hoped that Reeve could complete the rest of his thought or infer what Vincent meant to say: that Reeve, unlike the rest of the group, did know him. 

_“No, I suppose they don’t.”_

He also couldn’t help but hear a reply in Reeve’s smile. As if he had also said “But I do. I know you, Vincent” with a quiet confidence that Vincent knew Reeve possessed. 

The interior of Seventh Heaven smelled a bit like the exterior — fresh wood and paint that spilled alcohol from this party and future nights would quickly cover. Vincent could see this as a natural hangout for the Turks. It was slightly off the beaten path of where the main reconstruction would likely begin on the outskirts of Midgar. There were already a few Turks in attendance for the opening, although Vincent didn’t remember their names. 

“Vincent, I’m so happy you stopped by!” 

There was no hesitation or doubt in Tifa’s voice. She had known he would come, despite appearances to the contrary. 

Vincent nodded in response, face still partially-hidden behind his cowl. Tifa continued to smile at him, eyes sparkling with humour that he didn’t quite understand. Perhaps she was simply that happy to see him. 

Tifa was the kind of person who genuinely cared about people she considered close to her, often to her detriment. Vincent wasn’t certain how he’d come to be included in that group, but at this point it would be an insult to Tifa if he didn’t at least admit to himself that she recognized him as one of her own. 

This was the majority of his reasoning for coming to the bar opening at all. 

“Wow I can’t believe you actually made it!”

Yuffie’s voice carried all of the snark and incredulousness that Tifa’s had lacked. 

Vincent turned to say something predictably terse and cutting but realized that she was talking past him to Reeve, who shrugged sheepishly and stood up. Marlene tugged on his trousers and Reeve ruffled her hair lightly. She said something to him that Vincent couldn’t hear, and Reeve stuck his tongue out at her.

“Can you believe he actually came?” 

She slapped Vincent on the back for emphasis and he stumbled forward, not anticipating the strength of the blow. He kept a wince of pain from showing on his face. Vincent didn’t want to give Yuffie the satisfaction of startling him. 

“I thought he’d be a weird hermit or something but he looks pretty normal.”

Before Vincent could respond, he heard Reeve’s voice next to him.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Yuffie. I’m just a pencil-pusher.”

Reeve grinned good-naturedly at the loud ninja who laughed and punched him in the side. From Reeve’s reaction, the punch hadn’t been much lighter than her slap to Vincent’s back. 

Vincent could feel the monsters bubbling to the surface of his mind. Reeve’s grin appeared behind his eyelids when he closed his eyes and Vincent wanted to claw that Shinra executive mask off of Reeve’s face. He clenched his fists tightly at his sides and gritted his teeth. The claws of his gauntlet screeched as metal scraped against metal.

Perhaps the distance had been a benefit. This had certainly seemed easier when Reeve only appeared when it was just the two of them, a tinny voice through a microphone dissipating into the night air. 

“Vincent?” 

Now that voice was coming from beside him. Vincent shuddered.

“I’m fine,” he said. He relaxed his hands and rolled his shoulders back. Reeve frowned but didn’t press him. 

“That’s the first thing you’ve said all night,” Tifa teased from behind the bar, shoving three highball glasses filled with a noxious red liquid into their hands. Yuffie sniffed at it curiously, wrinkling her nose at the viscosity. Vincent tilted his glass slightly and watched as the syrupy drink slowly moved to the side. 

“Gross,” Yuffie said. 

“Slàinte mhath,” Reeve said as he knocked it back in one shot. 

“What in heck are you doing?” Yuffie asked. She sounded a bit in awe of Reeve, watching him swallow the drink with a grimace. 

Tifa giggled at them, collecting Reeve’s glass as he pushed it back across the bar towards her. 

“It’s our latest revision of a drink called the Cosmo Candle.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Reeve said. Laughing, he turned back to talk to Yuffie about something. Vincent slowly tuned both of them out, allowing the ambient noise of the bar to wash over him. 

Someone was changing the songs in the jukebox again. He could hear Barrett yelling and Marlene chastising him. 

Reeve’s cheeks were flushed with embarrassment and a lock of dark hair had already come loose from where he had slicked it back. It hung over Reeve’s forehead haphazardly.

Lucrecia’s face had been classically beautiful. It still was, in an ethereal sense that wasn’t quite human now that she was frozen in time, just as he was. 

Vincent hadn’t expected Reeve to look this vibrant, or this alive. The dark circles under the former executive’s eyes were still there, as were the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and stray grey hairs, but he looked more unburdened than Vincent had expected. 

He felt something brush against his hand and Vincent looked up to see Tifa watching him with a knowing grin. She pressed the highball glass against his fingertips. Vincent hadn’t realized he had leaned back against the bar, migrating away from the conversation. 

“Have a drink with him,” she said. 

“I can’t get drunk.” Vincent had tried. The monsters made it impossible. 

Tifa looked like she was holding back laughter, but continued to smile at him as she stepped back and poured an identical drink. 

“Still, share this with him. He wants you to.”

Vincent held up one of the drinks to the light, watching it refract through the red liquid. It cast a red spot on the light-coloured wood of the bar.

"He's walking this way," Tifa whispered softly. "Good luck."

When Vincent turned to respond, Tifa had already made her way back to the other end of the bar and started up a conversation with a dark-haired man that Vincent didn't know.

“Would you like to take these outside for a bit, Vincent?” Reeve asked. His voice came from beside Vincent again. 

Vincent wondered if he’d ever get used to hearing Reeve’s voice in person. 

Yuffie had joined Barrett and Cloud across the room. She was now kicking the jukebox while Cloud glared at her and Barrett looked like he was a few more skipped songs away from kicking it or Yuffie himself. 

Reeve’s shy smile slowly fell without a response and he rubbed his fingers absentmindedly against the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. 

“Yes,” Vincent said.


	3. Over the Bannister Leaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Reeve laughed again. He sounded freer than he ever had during their prior conversations._
> 
> _“How does he move on his own?” Vincent asked. He had been surprised to see the toy completely autonomous, playing with Marlene in a corner of the bar when he and Reeve had walked into Seventh Heaven._
> 
> _Scratching at his beard absentmindedly, Reeve frowned. “Tis not somethin’ I can easily explain.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just . . . love these two together so much.

Vincent wrinkled his nose at the smell of varnish as they walked out onto the porch. 

“Are you okay?” Reeve asked. He studied Vincent in a clinical way, like a doctor assessing a patient.

“I should have asked before but you don’t like being around a lot of people, do you?”

Vincent shook his head absentmindedly in response. Distracted by the scent, he tried to smell the wood underneath. 

The monsters shrieked in his head, displeased at how the odor dulled their senses. 

“It’s the varnish,” Vincent said. “The smell is strong.”

Reeve sipped his drink slowly and nodded. 

He was completely different than the flushed, laughing Reeve who had knocked his drink back in one swallow at the bar. 

Leaning down over the railing, Reeve looked out at the scaffolding and skeleton buildings that had already cropped up at the edge of Midgar since Meteorfall. Fingers wrapped around the half-full highball glass, Reeve’s arms hung loosely over the bannister. Reeve’s jacket cuffs were slightly too large and nearly reached his fingers. Vincent watched small puffs of breath dissipate in front of Reeve’s face as he sighed. 

“They call it Edge,” Reeve said, gesturing out into the night. The bright red drink sloshed lazily in his glass and his voice broke slightly on the name. “A new Midgar, reborn from the ashes of the old city.”

Vincent huffed but didn’t say anything. He knew his own breath, hidden behind the cowl, would show in the damp night air too, but sometimes he nearly believed Yuffie’s vampire stories or the mass of voices boiling in his brain. There was always the odd question of what would happen if it didn’t show up, if he didn’t truly have breath. 

When Vincent didn’t respond, Reeve sighed again.

“I meant to ask one of those nights, but it seemed like it would be rude back then — do you have trouble with the monsters?”

Vincent shook his head again and leaned back against the porch railing, his back facing the dim lights of makeshift lamps and brighter, sickly-green mako lanterns. 

“I forgot you know about that,” Vincent said. 

He hadn’t truly forgotten, but it hadn’t come up in a while — since their first few meetings. 

Reeve continued to look out at the growing city. 

“I told you that I looked you up when you joined. You could have looked up anything about me in return, especially once we were on the Highwind. I gave you many hints.”

Vincent heard the unspoken question in Reeve’s voice.

Reeve had given him a variety of hints well before he had admitted to designing the reactor. The reactor admission would have made it easy for Vincent to discover Reeve’s identity, despite his obvious memory gaps of the past thirty years. Vincent wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Reeve was widely-known for his engineering contributions.

“I wanted you to tell me,” Vincent admitted. 

He dragged his index finger in a slow circle around the rim of his own highball glass. It came away damp with condensation on his bare fingertip through the fingerless gloves of his shooting hand. The glass was still full of the drink that Tifa had poured for them both. 

Vincent didn’t elaborate as to why he had wanted Reeve to tell him, hoping Reeve too could fill in the gaps like he often had when they weren’t face-to-face. 

They had begun nearly every conversation through Cait Sith with Vincent asking Reeve who he was — at first receiving cagey answers designed to hide who Reeve was and then increasingly close or ridiculous answers depending on how Reeve felt that night. 

An engineer. 

A pilot. 

_”Reeve Tuesti, Director of Shinra’s Urban Development and Planning Division.”_

Vincent had kept the information close, but had hoarded it over making any concerted effort to learn Reeve’s position within Shinra. Chaos in particular — the loudest and most insidious voice — had found Vincent’s perceived hesitation hilarious. 

Reeve hummed, turning away from the city to face Vincent. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

_Is it?_

Vincent had done it more from selfishness than thoughtfulness. 

_”They don’t know me. They know Cait Sith.”_

It could have been the monsters that made Vincent oddly possessive or his own personality. The two blurred together too frequently for Vincent’s liking. He supposed this was what happened when his first reaction after waking up on the cold metal operating table with only Lucrecia’s thesis as company had been to enter a forced sleep. 

To ask Reeve, “Who are you?” now, like the beginnings of their old conversations, wouldn’t get to the heart of what Vincent wanted to know: who Reeve actually was. He sometimes felt like tearing Reeve apart to see what was inside and this too could be the monsters, or it could just be Vincent himself. 

Vincent didn’t say any of this aloud but Reeve laughed anyway and finished his drink. 

“I wondered what this would look like in person,” Reeve said. He leaned away from the railing and turned his body closer to Vincent, forearms still resting against freshly-painted wood. 

“Your face as you think,” Reeve continued as if Vincent had asked him what he was talking about. 

_”I can see you thinking,”_

Vincent remembered Reeve’s voice, crackling and echoing slightly through Cait Sith’s body. It was still odd to hear it so close to his face, unhindered and undistorted by distance and a microphone. 

Shrugging his shoulders, Vincent polished off his drink. It was something to do in the silence. Although he didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable, Vincent’s body thrummed with energy. 

“How did you talk through Cait Sith?” he asked. 

“Cait Sith was the first robot that I designed myself at the Academy,” Reeve said with a wide smile. “One of his primary functions back then was so I could talk to my friends in other dormitories or parts of the school.”

“Or for sneaking out at night,” Vincent said with a small smirk under his cowl that Reeve couldn’t see. He could easily imagine Reeve as a precocious kid at school, tinkering with a robot so he could play with his friends. 

“That too.” 

Reeve laughed again. He sounded freer than he ever had during their prior conversations.

“How does he move on his own?” Vincent asked. He had been surprised to see the toy completely autonomous, playing with Marlene in a corner of the bar when he and Reeve had walked into Seventh Heaven. 

Scratching at his beard absentmindedly, Reeve frowned. “Tis not somethin’ I can easily explain.” 

Reeve’s eyes widened as he spoke, choking back a small laugh as his accent seeped into his words unbidden. 

“Don’t…” Vincent said immediately. He didn’t mean to sound as desperate as he did, but Reeve’s formalness had been bothering him all night. The metal claws of his gauntlet shrieked as they scraped against each other while Vincent tightened his left hand around the banister.

“It’s a habit,” Reeve admitted, ducking his head. His voice was a combination of his natural accent and the polished Shinra executive. 

“Self-preservation ’n all.”

“Control,” Vincent countered. 

“Something like that,” Reeve said. He sighed and looked back up at Vincent, shifting on his heels. If Vincent hadn’t known better, he would have thought Reeve shy. 

“Would you like another drink? We could open one of those bottles of wine I brought.”

“I thought those were for Tifa.”

Reeve hummed. “One of them could be for us.”

“I can’t get drunk.” Vincent didn’t know why he wasn’t simply answering “Yes” but Reeve took this as an affirmative anyway, pushing off of the railing with his forearms towards the door. 

“I’ll be right back,” Reeve said with a wide smile. “Unless you wanted to go back inside?”

Vincent shook his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another reminder that some of Vincent's thoughts are quotes from his conversations with Reeve in [A Most Wanted Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135382/chapters/58111417). You don't have to read that whatsoever to understand this fic; however, if you're interested in how they grew to be friends and where a lot of Vincent's thought processes are coming from, you may want to read that as well.


	4. Sláinte mhaith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Vincent looked up at Reeve. His body was a dark silhouette against the warm lighting and noise from the bar interior. As Reeve stepped forward, Vincent noticed that the younger man’s face was more flushed than before, either from alcohol or the temperature inside. Lines pulled at the corners of Reeve’s eyes and mouth as he smiled._
> 
> _As he nodded wordlessly in Reeve’s direction Vincent wondered what he would have looked like if his own body could also age — whether he would wear it as a mantle of fatigue like Reeve or a piece of armour like Barrett._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sláinte mhaith" is a Scottish Gaelic toast. Because the 1:1 translation for Reeve's natural accent and the accent he gives Cait Sith is Scottish, I used it.

Without Reeve to distract him, the scent of the varnish returned. Vincent pulled his cowl up over his nose and scrubbed violently at his temples.

The monsters hissed at him in pain and amusement. 

Since leaving the Shinra Mansion, the monsters had fortunately become quieter. In his extended sleep they had invaded every facet of his mind, blurring the lines of his self-loathing and forced apathy with emotional flashes of revenge and violence. 

Talking with Reeve through Cait Sith during their journey had helped. He didn’t talk to the others much although they talked to him constantly, unintentionally helping push out the monsters’ voices with their own noise. Vincent didn’t dislike them, Yuffie in particular was like a younger sister, but they were all so young and he was 57 years-old regardless of his unfortunate physical appearance. 

Vincent sighed and sat down on the porch steps leading up to Seventh Heaven’s front door. It was more comfortable than leaning on the bannister.

Reeve was still young, but older than the rest save Barrett — whose single-mindedness had earned both Vincent’s respect and ire. Although he had yet to ask much about Reeve’s past, he had enough of a general outline to know that Reeve had likely been forced to mature relatively quickly.

The cacophony of voices from the bar grew louder, spilling out onto the porch and following a shaft of light from the open door. Reeve reappeared with two long-stemmed wine glasses in one hand and one of his bottles of wine in the other, carefully closing the door behind him with his foot. 

“Everything okay?” 

Vincent looked up at Reeve. His body was a dark silhouette against the warm lighting and noise from the bar interior. As Reeve stepped forward, Vincent noticed that the younger man’s face was more flushed than before, either from alcohol or the temperature inside. Lines pulled at the corners of Reeve’s eyes and mouth as he smiled. 

As he nodded wordlessly in Reeve’s direction Vincent wondered what he would have looked like if his own body could also age — whether he would wear it as a mantle of fatigue like Reeve or a piece of armour like Barrett. 

Groaning as he sat down on the stair below Vincent, Reeve stretched his legs out so they rested two steps from where he sat. 

“Tifa was kind enough to open this for me so I didn’ have to struggle with the cork myself.”

Reeve’s light accent washed over Vincent, who closed his eyes naturally in response as if that would somehow make him hear it more loudly. 

As if the monsters and his frozen body didn’t already give him superior hearing. 

As if he was a normal, middle-aged man.

Vincent opened his eyes immediately when he felt the light brush of Reeve’s fingers on his, nearly dropping his empty glass. 

Reaching forward with a smile, Reeve took the highball glass from Vincent’s fingers and placed it on the step next to him. 

“She insisted that we use proper glasses,” Reeve said with a wide grin. “Apparently reusing these would affect the taste of the wine.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Vincent said. The wine itself sloshed quietly into the glasses as Reeve carefully poured it from a bit of a height. 

At Vincent’s stare, Reeve flushed again. “Tifa told me to do this too. Something about it breathing.”

“You didn’t learn this in Shinra finishing school?” Vincent said dryly and without much thought. The entire situation was ridiculous and didn’t seem like the Reeve he knew, like purposefully hiding his accent. 

Again, Vincent found himself wondering how much he knew Reeve. 

_“Sorry to disappoint you, Yuffie. I’m just a pencil-pusher.”_

Reeve had said this earlier and it was true wasn’t it. But the note of self-deprecation in Reeve’s voice had made Vincent want to rip the younger man apart. 

Perhaps he should ask the myriad questions pressing up against the inside of his head like the monsters themselves, but that seemed like somehow admitting defeat — an admission that he didn’t know Reeve as well as he had hoped.

It shouldn’t matter that much to Vincent but it did, just like the accent and the ill-fitting suit and now pretending to be some sort of sommelier when Vincent didn’t care. He knew he sounded petulant and childish.

Reeve stared at him with a shocked expression on his face. He had stopped pouring the wine and both glasses somehow had what appeared to be the exact same amount of liquid in them. Vincent opened his mouth to apologize when Reeve suddenly threw his head back and laughed. 

“Shinra finishing school…” Reeve said between peals of laughter. “That’s a good one.”

He handed Vincent a glass of the wine. It was a dark burgundy colour that nearly matched his own cloak. 

“I think Shinra would have been just as happy to lock me in a room and keep me producing mako reactor types but unfortunately my initial presentation went over a bit too well.”

“How?”

Reeve winced. “They realized I would be a better figurehead if I was made an executive. And I liked doing a lot of the dirty work that they didn’t. It was a good PR move.”

Vincent nodded.

“Anyway, sláinte mhaith,” Reeve said, raising his glass to Vincent’s with a high-pitched ping. 

“What does that mean?”

“Good health.” Reeve frowned briefly in thought. “I suppose ‘to your good health’ would also be accurate. It’s an old grasslands toast.”

“Sláinte mhaith.” The words felt coarse on Vincent’s tongue. He could hear his rough pronunciation warping around the vowel sounds. 

“Do dheagh shlàinte,” Reeve replied with a low laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to update/finish some fics before my work becomes ridiculously busy for the latter half of September until the beginning of November. However, if I don't update for a while, I haven't abandoned this story. (I rarely abandon things tbh, I consider all of my unfinished fics still "open" even ones I haven't touched for a while due to my own ineptitude.) ^ ^;


	5. Interlude: Tifa Lockhart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Reno and Rude are both already here,” she said. Briefly placing her hand over his she made sure to meet his eyes._
> 
> _“Reeve, you’re always welcome here. Seriously.”_
> 
> _He nervously fidgeted with the cuffs of his jacket, but rewarded her with a genuine smile. “Thank you, Tifa. That means a great deal to me.”_
> 
> _She clicked her tongue disapprovingly with a sharp breath and snapped the dishtowel she had shoved in her pocket in his direction._
> 
> _“Stop it with the formality! We’re all friends here.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow this isn't abandoned. ^ ^

“I told him.” 

Cloud slid his canvas bag across the unfinished bar. 

Tifa bit back a comment about how he was attempting to ruin the bar before she had a chance to varnish or paint it and smiled instead, catching the bag easily in her hands before it had the chance to fall to the floor. A quick peek inside revealed the glazed bowls that she had wanted from Cosmo Canyon — well outside of either Cloud’s delivery route or Vincent’s and hardly a part of their recent missions. 

Cheeks colouring slightly as she closed the bag back up and stashed it underneath the bar, she nodded her thanks.

“These will go nicely with the glasses I bought. Thank you.” 

Cloud looked away towards the door, eyes wandering around the empty room. Thus far, Tifa had only been able to bring in the bar itself and a few stools. Her tables would arrive in two days; the jukebox and cabinets in five. 

“Aren’t you going to ask if he’ll come?” he said, running his hand across the bar top. Sawdust clung to his fingertips and he wiped them on his trousers, trying to get rid of the gritty feeling. 

Tifa shook her head firmly. “I know he’ll come,” she said with confidence. 

Cloud quirked an eyebrow up at her as he shrugged off the large leather sheath strapped around his chest. She had been meaning to ask him about the increasingly complicated sword design. 

“Vincent cares more than he lets on,” she said, pulling out a glass and quickly filling it with lukewarm water from one of her new taps. 

“There’s only one person that I don’t know whether they’ll come or not.”

***

Reeve Tuesti opened the door awkwardly with his elbows, juggling two bottles of wine in a suit that was too big in the shoulders and with the shadow of Vincent in the doorway behind him.

Tifa covered her mouth briefly to hide her giggles and finished pouring Yuffie a beer before waving at him from the bar. 

Internally, she breathed a sigh of relief. Reeve had been the only member of their group that she had been unsure about. None of them had really spoken with Reeve as himself before. She wasn’t sure how much of Cait Sith was Reeve and how much of the robot was itself — a friendly, slightly-obnoxious interface to talk to people. 

He greeted her with a wide smile, neatly placing the bottles on the bar top and leaning over to hug her loosely. Tifa swallowed her shock and when she pulled away, she held him slightly by the shoulders at arms length while he grinned. 

“Reeve, I’m so happy you made it,” she said. 

“Thank you for inviting me,” he said formally, tilting his head and shoulders forward in a slight bow. “To be honest, I was surprised to receive the invitation. I didn’t know whether you would want a former Shinra executive as part of your opening day party.”

Tifa swallowed again, fighting the urge to frown at his easy self-deprecation. Instead she cocked her shoulder to the side and pointed across the room. 

“Reno and Rude are both already here,” she said. Briefly placing her hand over his she made sure to meet his eyes. 

“Reeve, you’re always welcome here. Seriously.”

He nervously fidgeted with the cuffs of his jacket, but rewarded her with a genuine smile. “Thank you, Tifa. That means a great deal to me.”

She clicked her tongue disapprovingly with a sharp breath and snapped the dishtowel she had shoved in her pocket in his direction.

“Stop it with the formality! We’re all friends here.”

Reeve ran his fingers through his hair and nodded, turning to Marlene who had begin playing with Cait Sith in the corner next to the bar. 

Still smiling, Tifa shook her head and wiped down a few of the empty highball glasses that had begun accumulating at the other end of the countertop. A shadow fell over the bar.

“Vincent, I’m so happy you stopped by!” she said cheerily without looking up. 

He nodded, face still mostly-hidden beneath his large cowl. Laughing to herself, she smirked as she watched Vincent’s eyes follow Reeve around the room.

***

Tifa watched Vincent as Reeve brushed off Yuffie’s questioning, wincing at the soft metal scraping sound from his gauntlet. She watched as Vincent’s eyes narrowed and then widened, pupils blown out almost comically. She watched and laughed to herself while wondering when Vincent and Reeve had made the time to know each other, or whether Vincent was simply infatuated with Reeve at first sight.

“Have a drink with him,” she finally said, knocking a full glass conspicuously into his hand where it rested on the bar. 

“I can’t get drunk.”

Leaning back to pour another, identical drink, she held back her laughter again. 

“Still, share this with him. He wants you to.”

Vincent didn’t respond. Instead, he held up the glass to the light as if studying it for poisons. She slid the other drink across the bar to Reeve, who had returned to Vincent’s side, flushed and slightly out of breath. 

“Would you like to take these outside for a bit, Vincent?” Reeve asked. He bit his lip nervously. 

“Yes.” Vincent’s response was brusque and immediate. 

Tifa smiled and busied herself with cleaning more glasses. As the door closed behind them, she pulled out one of Reeve’s bottles of wine, neatly uncorking it to let it breathe.

***

“Do you have…”

Reeve paused and swallowed. Tifa couldn’t hold back her laughter this time, and giggled as the former executive visibly struggled to speak as formally as possible. 

“Do you have one of the bottles I brought earlier and would you mind if I absconded with one of them?” Reeve asked. 

“Take it,” she said, still laughing while she placed the opened bottle carefully in his hands. Before he could thank her and walk away, she pointed her index finger at his nose and shook her head, grinning widely. 

“Un-uh, you need proper glasses for an occasion like this.”

Plucking the two highball glasses from Reeve’s hands, she pulled out a couple of long-stemmed wine glasses and handed them to him.

“An occasion like this?”

She ignored his question and gestured above the glasses. 

“If you pour it from a height, it will help aerate the wine and improve the flavour.” she said. 

“I’ve heard that before,” Reeve answered, furrowing his brow as he tried to remember from whom. 

“Hey.” Tifa snapped her fingers to get Reeve’s attention before he could become lost in thought. 

“It’s okay to be happy Reeve. Have fun. Even if it’s just for a day.” 

He opened his mouth as if to contradict her, but then relaxed his shoulders and smiled.

“Thanks, Tifa.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My busiest time of the season has finally ended so I'm in a bit of a lull period through the holidays which means I should be able to get back to writing again! Thanks so much to everyone who has stuck around for this fic. I'm surprised at how positively it has been received. ^ ^;


	6. Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Reeve had finished talking and was now looking at him with a smile. Moving his cowl down a bit, Vincent smiled back, hoping it didn’t look too much like a grimace._
> 
> _"I love this city,” Reeve said without any provocation, placing his hand back on the porch deck next to Vincent’s gold gauntlet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clenches fist* These two...

“She was a good kid. Uncanny in a way. I think… I think she had to grow up quickly.”

Reeve paused in the middle of reminiscing about his time with Marlene and looked down at his shoes. 

“I didn’ spend much time with her, truthfully. I wish I had though.” 

Reeve’s accent was light around his still-obvious attempts to remain as eloquent and sober-sounding as possible. Vincent was glad for his cowl, which hid what was a fairly wide grin. 

“The Turks took care of her. I was primarily used…” Waving his arms in the air, Reeve splashed a bit of wine onto the steps. “Elsewhere.” 

“Ah, I’m sorry, Vincent. I didn’ spill any on you did I?”

Vincent shook his head, leaning forward in the hopes that Reeve would continue. Instead, the former Shinra executive sighed and lifted up a nearly empty wine bottle above his head towards the porch lights. 

“That’s the last of it I s’pose. Here.”

Reeve’s fingers brushed against his own as Vincent waited for Reeve to finish filling his glass — the last of the bottle that Reeve had brought with him. 

It sent a shiver up Vincent’s spine that was surprisingly pleasant. Reeve’s hands were warm with long fingers that were half-covered by his ill-fitting blazer. Vincent wanted to feel them again, but Reeve had already moved away to finish his own drink, leaving Vincent feeling oddly bereft.

At some point during their conversation they had taken to sitting on the steps, leaning back against the porch deck. Despite the chill, Reeve had unbuttoned his blazer and undone the top button of his dress shirt. His red tie had been rolled up neatly and placed in the pocket of his trousers. 

Vincent watched the curve of Reeve’s neck as Reeve sipped his wine and started to talk warmly about his mother. Reeve had a prominent bump in his neck where his larynx was. It moved every time his swallowed. 

The monsters laughed. Chaos remarked that Reeve was making himself an easy target by exposing such a fragile part of the human body that way. 

Leaning back, Vincent continued to stare. The step above him dug into his shoulders sharply. He could feel it through his cape. Taking a deep sniff of the wine helped with the varnish smell, alongside Reeve’s somewhat distracting presence.  
Truthfully, Vincent hadn’t expected it to be this easy to talk to Reeve. He was suddenly glad that it was impossible for him to get drunk.

_“When all of this is over, I’ll buy you a drink. We can talk about what is or isn’t our fault in life.”_

This was the drink promised during one of their first few conversations.

He wanted to tell Reeve that it wasn’t his fault. That Reeve had helped keep Marlene safe. But he didn’t know the truth of this and was too afraid to ask more. The question of whether Reeve would have killed Marlene if Shinra had ordered it bubbled on the tip of his tongue. 

_“I’ve killed over fifty-thousand people in my lifetime.”_ Reeve had said once, back when he was still an executive. Vincent now knew this to be generally false — a half-truth at most, due to the plate drop ordered by his bosses. 

Reeve had killed people, but wasn’t a killer. 

He wanted to believe the best of Reeve. He wanted to continue to believe that Reeve was a better man than himself. 

Reeve had finished talking and was now looking at him with a smile. Moving his cowl down a bit, Vincent smiled back, hoping it didn’t look too much like a grimace. 

"I love this city,” Reeve said without any provocation, placing his hand back on the porch deck next to Vincent’s gold gauntlet. 

His voice hitched on the word “city” at the end of the statement in a way that let Vincent know it was from genuine emotion than a drunk hiccough, just as it had earlier in the evening when he had remarked on the name “Edge.”

Vincent swirled the dregs of wine in his glass, rubbing his thumb against the stem. Reeve didn’t appear to be the type of person to fill silence with nervous conversation like Yuffie. Their conversations over the past year had frequently lapsed into a comfortable silence with neither of them speaking for several minutes. 

He wondered if Reeve couldn’t help himself, buoyed by drink and future possibility. Perhaps what Reeve had truly wanted to say was that he still loved the city, despite what had happened. Or that both cities, Midgar and Edge, were equal in Reeve’s mind. 

Midgar hadn’t been just a place for Reeve, it had been his life’s work. Reeve didn’t seem inclined to elaborate and had begun to stare out at the cranes and scaffolding in the distance. 

Maybe Reeve couldn’t help but sometimes say how much he truly loved his city.

For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Vincent felt so many questions pressed to the forefront of his mind along with the monsters and none of them were the right question to ask. 

Some of them, he simply was afraid of the answer. 

If Veld could see him now, his former superior would laugh at how incompetent he’d grown to be since his time with the Turks. Shaking his head minutely, Vincent pushed this thought back down with another sip of wine. 

This wasn’t an interrogation. It was a conversation with a friend. 

“Are you alright with everything?”

It hadn’t been what Vincent had meant to say — vague and distant when nothing needed to be said whatsoever — although upon further reflection, he hadn’t meant to say anything at all. 

“How it ended, I mean,” Vincent continued. He may as well ask now that he’d opened his mouth. 

A high-pitched laughter echoed in his head — Death Gigas had a shrill voice that always stood out from the rest of them. 

Laughter he didn’t recognize joined with it and then overtook it in a rich tenor. It was Reeve, who had thrown his head back and was laughing more freely than Vincent had ever heard from him. It was bitter and brittle but real. 

Everything about being with Reeve made Vincent feel grounded and present in a way that he hadn’t been since Lucrecia had died. 

“Ah, Vincent,” Reeve said, sniffling a bit as he wiped small tears from the corners of his eyes. Vincent closed his eyes to listen to Reeve’s accent curl angrily around the words. 

“How could I be? They destroyed my city.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The memories that Vincent remembers are from a series of conversations he had with Reeve during the events of Final Fantasy VII, as told in [A Most Wanted Man.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135382/chapters/58111417)


End file.
